


The Renormalized-Rational Resolution to the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma

by Anonymous



Category: Chess (Board Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: "In a different time, she would have been queen, and sent to Diemme as an emissary of hope bearing the promises of peace. But this is not that war."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Borusa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Borusa/gifts).



Q-22 arrived at the Academy's central campus by helicopter in the early afternoon of a rainy day, and was met at the pad by a girl dressed all in Noctia-black. 22 wrapped a band around her own hair and stepped under the umbrella the girl held; it was wide and sturdy and did nothing whatsoever to keep out the rain. "Glad you made it," the girl said, barely audible over the rain, and they walked together back to the building.

"Shitty weather," the girl said once they were back indoors, as she stepped out of her boots and pulled on court shoes.  "It's usually better than this..."

"I hope so," 22 replied.

They walked down the corridor in silence before the girl spoke again. "People are curious, about you," she said. "All we know about the new Queen is that she went to school in the other campus and has a perfect win record. Is it true?"

"108 wins, one draw."

"Who was it?"

"Her name is 29. She goes here."

"Oh," the girl replied. "I'm honored, then."

_You...?_

It was good to finally put a face to the name. They had been matched to one another in an early tournament, and 29 had messaged her saying "Can we not fight" and 22 had agreed, bemusedly, and they had sat in front of their respective screens for half an hour doing absolutely nothing. "This isn't a bad plan," 22 had thought— except that if she had been anything less than secure in her own resources and abilities to turn the situation around if anything went wrong, she would have gone back on her word with no compunction. As things were, 29's class rank— or lack thereof— suggested that most of her opponents had done exactly that.

They stop in front of a closed door. "The King wants to see you," 29 says.

She led 22 to a side room where the familiar screen and speakers were already set up. Even before his promotion, K-55 was notoriously secretive, and preferred to hide his face between the avatar of a chess piece and his voice behind a scrambler and a set of speakers. 22 didn't talk to him this way much; more often they would discuss strategies and formations over the Academy's instant messaging system. That suited both of them just fine, and was part of why they worked so well together.

This meeting was a formality only, going over the movements 22 would take the next day in the fight against Diemme; she already knew them all by heart, having worked out the tactics and formations herself with 55 over many, many sleepless nights locked in her room at the Academy's other campus.

The screen shut off, and after a fashion 29 entered the room again to take her to her next appointment, an exhibition match with the girl ranked second.

Later, when 22 had completed all her obligations and politely declined evening activities in favour of resting early to prepare for the day tomorrow. When 29 showed her to the room prepared for her, she said, "I'll come by later to see if you need anything."

"No need," 22 replied. "You should get some rest too." She let the door fall closed after the click of 29's heels disappeared down the corridor.

 

* * *

 

There was a knock at the door.

22 peered through the door viewer and then opened the door. 29 was waiting outside; she had changed out of her formal clothes, and looked much more relaxed and happy than she had that afternoon. "I said I'd stop by to see if you needed anything...?

22 was about to refuse again, but 29 had just come all this way and there _was_ something 22 wanted to see while she was here. "Can you show me where to get a cup of tea?"

"Kitchen's this way," 29 replied at once, and motioned 22 towards the door. They walked down the hall, which was so silent the pad of their slippers was audible.

The breakroom was just as empty and quiet. "Not a lot of people live in this part of the dorms," 29 said. "The spare mugs are on the second shelf, though no one will mind if you use theirs."

22 looked through the boxes until she found the kind she liked; beside her, 29 picked a box seemingly at random, and they waited for the tea to steep in silence. 29 had her hands wrapped around her cup for warmth, fingers flat against grey porcelain.

"55 agrees with you, you know," 22 said, to fill the quiet. "That it would be — better— if the fighting stopped."

That made 29 look up. "The King?" she said over the rim of her cup.

Not a lot of people knew 55 was king. "You know him?"

"Yes. He was one of the few who went along with it. My 'can we not fight' thing. We talked afterward."

22 had thought that, at a point, 55 had changed the view with which he approached the conflict with Diemme. Now, she thought, she knew why. "You see the games here the same way he sees the wars— not as individual fights to be won, but as an ongoing interaction."

"I'm glad," 29 said. "Also, can we go back, if you don't mind? It's cold."

She didn't want to talk about it, 22 realized; she nodded, and they walked back to 22's room in silence. "Sorry," 29 said, when they reached 22's door.  "We usually keep the inhabited side of the dorms a bit warmer than this."

East campus was at a high altitude and the environment was like that most of the time, so 22 hardly noticed it at all, but she went over to the thermostat and raised it anyway. There was only one chair in the room, so 22 waved 29 to it and sat on the bed.

They talked about classes, chess, family, everything but what would happen tomorrow or anything related to it. 29 was easy to talk to, and 22 wondered if, in a different time, they couldn't have been friends.

And then she remembered 55 saying: _In a different time, 29 would have been queen, and sent to Diemme as an emissary of hope bearing the promises of peace._

She thinks, 29 might have succeeded.

There were a lot of could-have beens that were better than this, but this was how things were, and they could only do the best they could with it.

When both their cups were empty, 29 stood up. "I'll let you rest now, my queen. Good luck tomorrow." It was the first time in the entire evening 29 had used 22's title instead of her name, and it changed something.

"Thank you," 22 replied. She thought about saying something more, and 29 stood in the doorway for as long as she hesitated, but eventually she shook her head. "You rest, too, 29. Sorry for keeping you this late."

"It's fine. I'm not going tomorrow, my class rank is so low that the council is scared of sending me," 29 replied, and then she smiled and turned and left. When 22 could no longer hear her footsteps in the corridor, she let the door fall shut.

 

* * *

 

As 22 stared at the ceiling that night in the dark, she remembered what the King had told her, the day she was crowned Queen: that the goal which all the Kings, past and present, worked toward, was an eventual end to the fighting. It was strange that someone like 29 wanted something so similar but in such a different way: where K-55 thought about in terms of dozens of wars played out over many millennia, 29 only cared about the practice matches she had to play against her classmates at the Academy.

Either way, 22's position and actions in all of it was insignificant: the war she would fight tomorrow was just one among many that had happened before and many that would still happen, just like the time she had with P-29 this evening had only been one interaction among many in the girl's life.

Still, that knowledge did change something. Tomorrow, she could only do her best, and the pieces would fall how they may.

As she fell asleep, for the first time in a long time, she did not worry.

 


End file.
